Tuesday, 15 December 2015

Current Affairs December 15, 2015

Delhi Tops Asia’s List Of
Best Cities For Shopping

New Delhi
has topped the list of Asia’s top cities for shopping, offering a treasure
trove of goods through its blend of charming traditional markets and
glitzy shopping malls, according to a new survey.

New Delhi
has topped the list for the best shopping city in Asia, followed by
Bangkok and Singapore, according to a survey by TripAdvisor.

Tamil Nadu sanctions Rs
50 crore for restoration of flood-hit roads

In Tamil Nadu, there is respite from heavy rain in most
parts of the state. Tamil Nadu government has sanctioned Rs 50 crore for
restoration of roads damaged by rain floods in affected districts including
Chennai, Cuddalore, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur.

India ranks 130 in Human
Development Index

India continued to rank low in the Human Development
Index (HDI), climbing just one notch to the 130th rank in the latest UNDP
report on account of rise in life expectancy and per capita income.

India ranked 130 among 188 countries in Human Development
Report 2015 released today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The ranking is for the year 2014.

Previous rank analysis,

As per the latest report, India’s rank has moved from 131
to 130. India’s HDI rank between 2009 and 2014 has risen six positions.

Losar festival being
celebrated today with traditional and religious fervour in Ladakh region of
J&K

The
ten-day long festival of Losar is being celebrated today with traditional
and religious fervor in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Losar
festival marks the beginning of New Year in Ladakh.

Lok Sabha Passes Bill To
Ease Setting Up Of New Nuclear Projects

The Lok
Sabha passed, by voice vote, a bill to amend the Atomic Energy Act to
“overcome difficulties encountered in the setting up of new nuclear
projects and enhancement of nuclear power generation”.

The Atomic
Energy (Amendment) Bill, 2015, which will enable the Nuclear Power Corp to
enter into joint ventures with other public sector undertakings (PSUs) to
fast track nuclear power projects in the country, was introduced in the
house on December 7 by Minister of State for Atomic Energy Jitendra Singh.

Saudi Arabia elects its
first female politicians

At least
18 women have won seats in Saudi Arabia’s municipal polls, the country’s
first-ever elections open to female voters and candidates.

The women
who won hail from vastly different parts of the country, ranging from
Saudi Arabia’s largest city to a small village near Islam’s holiest site.

Salma bint
Hizab al-Oteibi was elected to the council of Madrakah, a region in Mecca,
the official SPA news agency reported, citing election commission
president Osama al-Bar.

As economy slows, China
urges G20 to focus on domestic reforms

G20
leaders had met at Antalya last month and resolved to persist with
collective action

China, the
host for the 2016 G20 meet and holder of the rotating presidency, urged
member countries to pursue structural reforms to spur global economic
growth even as the Asian giant’s economy slows.

India’s
Finance Ministry has initiated consultations on the priorities identified
by China for the G20 summit in September 2016, which include constructing
a new structural reform index to assess progress by member nations on
their target to add two per cent growth to the global economy by 2018
through domestic reforms.

Bangladesh blocks
Twitter, Skype and Imo

The
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) sent a letter to
all of the country’s mobile phone operators and telecom service providers
asking them to suspend the services immediately.

BTRC
Chairman Shahjahan Mahmood confirmed the news, saying they took the step
following instructions from the government.

Ahmad Javed appointed
Indian envoy to Saudi Arabia

Mumbai
Police Commissioner Ahmad Javed has been appointed Ambassador to Saudi
Arabia, which has a 2.8 million-strong Indian community.

The
Ministry of External Affairs said Javed is expected to take up his
assignment shortly.

Facebook offices in
Germany vandalised

Offices of
social network Facebook in Hamburg were vandalised by a group of 15-20
people.

The
European head of the social networking giant is under probe in Germany
over the company’s alleged failure to remove racist hate speeches.

Amazon.in is most visited
e-commerce site in India, says CEO Jeff Bezos

Founder
and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos sent out an email thanking its customers as
Amazon.in becomes the most visited e-commerce site in India just two and a
half years after launch.

In an
attempt to celebrate and thank its customers, the company has announced an
Amazon.in gift card of Rs 200 for all customers who shop on Amazon.in
today, that is December 14.

NASA releases coloured
images of Pluto

NASA has
released an enhanced colour mosaic that combines some of the sharpest
views of Pluto which the U.S. space agency’s New Horizons spacecraft obtained
during its historic flyby of the icy-dwarf planet.

The
pictures are part of a sequence taken near New Horizons’ closest approach
to Pluto on July 14 this year, with resolutions of about 77-85 metres per
pixel showing features smaller than half a city block on Pluto’s
surface.

Food push: retail
inflation rises to 5.41% in November

Led by a
spike in food prices, especially pulses, consumer price index (CPI)-based
inflation for November rose to 5.41 per cent, from 5 per cent in October.

Consumer
food price inflation, which has a weightage of about 47 per cent in the
retail inflation index, spiked to 6.07 per cent in November from a level
of 1.13 per cent in November 2014. It was at 5.25 per cent in October.

Tech Mahindra, M&M to
buy Pininfarina

Milan-listed
Pininfarina designed cars for Ferrari, Maserati, Cadillac and Rolls-Royce

Tech
Mahindra and Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, part of the Mahindra Group, have
agreed to buy Italian car designer Pininfarina S.p.A. in an all-cash deal.

60:40 joint venture

Tech Mahindra and Mahindra and Mahindra have formed an
60:40 joint venture for the acquisition of Milan-listed Pininfarina, which has
designed cars for Ferrari, Maserati, Rolls-Royce and Cadillac.

Haier hires Indian
startup to make cool technologies

Haier, one of the world’s largest consumer durables
company, has hired a Bengaluru-based startup, Ideapoke, to help develop a
technology that would enable refrigerators to detect pesticides and harmful
bacteria in fruits and vegetables using sensors.

ASCI upholds complaints
against Airtel, HDFC, Flipkart

Advertising industry watchdog ASCI has upheld complaints
against 54 campaigns for misleading advertisements during September, including
those of Bharti Airtel, HDFC and Flipkart.

About Complaint

Customer Complaints Council (CCC) of Advertising Standard
Council of India (ASCI) upheld 13 complaints of misleading advertisements from
personal and healthcare category, seven in telecom and broadband category and
six in ecommerce category during the month.

HAL runs aircraft engine,
inaugurates chopper engine project

Defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), known
for long as a firm assembling aircraft, ran for the first time an engine that
can be used for military trainer aircraft both basic and advanced and
commercial business jets.

About Engine Project

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar started the 25-kN
Hindustan Turbo Fan Engine-25 (HTFE-25), which can be used for trainer aircraft
and also inaugurated the Hindustan Turbo Shaft Engine (HTSE-1200) which can be
used for helicopters of 3.5 tonne and five tonne to eight tonne class too.

Wipro Wins 2015 Aegis
Graham Bell Award

For ‘Innovation in IoT’

Wipro’s IT solution ‘Universal Data Parser’ (UDP) has
been awarded the 2015 Aegis Graham Bell Award for ‘Innovation in the field of
Internet of Things’.

Indian-origin writer J M
Sali wins South East Asia literary award

A
76-year-old Indian-origin writer whose 57 books are read in universities
has been declared as the winner of this year’s prestigious South East Asia
Write Award.

Jamaludeen
Mohamed Sali, who has been writing for over 50 years and has several
literary awards to his credit, including Singapore’s prestigious Cultural
Medallion and a number of them from Tamil Nadu, will receive the award.

Envoy quits as kickbacks
scam rocks Spain

Gustavo de
Aristegui resigned following news that he had received alleged corporate
kickbacks from Spanish companies

Spain
confirmed that its ambassador to India, Gustavo de Aristegui, has
“voluntarily resigned”.

Carlsen wins London
Classic, Anand ends ninth

Viswanathan
Anand played out a draw with Anish Giri of the Netherlands to finish ninth
in the London Classic while Magnus Carlsen of Norway won the event.
Carlsen also won the Grand Chess Tour after winning the Classic on the
final day for him.

Carlsen
beat Russian Alexander Grischuk in the final round with a little luck by
his side and then won the tie-breaker 1.5-0.5 against Maxime
Vachier-Lagrave of France to ensure his top spot.